


Talisman

by wings128



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen, Samulet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 20:37:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wings128/pseuds/wings128
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Is this what happened to the Samulet?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talisman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [echoes_of_another_life](https://archiveofourown.org/users/echoes_of_another_life/gifts).



> **A/N 1:** Written for , who wondered if the Samulet would make a reappearance. It’s just a little flight of fancy that took root in my imagination and wouldn’t let go, hope you like it hun.  
>  **A/N 2:** This was read over by and when it was just an unformatted continuous thought and as such hasn’t been beta-d. All mistakes are mine.

Sam stared through tear-blurred eyes at the defeated slump of Dean's broad shoulders and pleaded silently for his brother not to drop it; not to throw away the one connection they had left between them.

Dean ignored the knifepoint ache of heartbroken desperation that pierced sharp and fatal between his shoulder blades and let the well-worn, twice-renewed black cord slip from his numb fingers. The dull thud was heavy in his ears as it echoed out the funnel of the thin metal trash can; loud and brutal and as efficient a kill shot, as any decapitation or silver bullet to the heart.

~*~

She was about done, just one room to make up and she could head home; then out to meet the girls for buffalo wings, cold beer and bar-trivia. Their team was the all-out, top-of-the-table champs, three weeks running. Mary-Joe smiled as she inspected the apparently unused bed, before changing the sheets and straightening the cover on its twin; tonight would make it four.

There really wasn’t any mess in the room, its recent occupants oddly house proud, but Mary-Joe sprayed and wiped over the bathroom counter and mirror, changed the toilet tissue and replaced used towels for clean. She nodded with satisfaction, it may be a dump of a place but she'd been raised to take pride in her work. 

With a last look around, eyes sharp to catch anything out of place, Mary-Joe opened the door and caught the trash can up onto her hip. The rattling-slide was loud enough to be heard over the protesting screech of weathered hinges and with a curious glance, she saw something she’d never expected to see again. Something that tugged at her memories of a time she'd rather forget. 

A time when a stranger with brilliant green eyes had come into their lives… 

~*~

"Momma?!"

"In the kitchen!" her mother called in a tired voice that betrayed just how the older woman’s day had panned out even before Mary-Joe saw the lines around kind blue eyes.

"I'm headin' out but I wanted to show you somethin'"

Helena turned, orange glow of the setting sun playing in grey-blonde hair as Mary-Joe entered, her daughter’s dainty bare feet with their pink sparkly toes curled back unconsciously from the first floorboard inside the door. The one that had only ever creaked since... 

Her mind skittered successfully away from the memories usually buried so deep you could dig half way to China and still not find their shadows. But Helena’s heart continued to thump in panic against her ribs as she stared at the unique charm hanging from her daughter's outstretched fingertips, its black tether severe against soft pale skin.

"Where did you find that?" she asked, voice so breathless and tight in her throat that it came forth as the barest shocked whisper.

"I was cleaning and..." Mary-Joe’s awed answer wasn’t much louder.

The two women gazed, lost in their own moment of thought, hypnotized by the slow swing of leather and brass as Mary-Joe's arm muscles cramped from holding it out so long.

"He only had his car and this, how did..." Mary-Joe swallowed hard and didn’t continue. 

The tiny trinket used to swing happily across the firm contours of his chest, she used to watch and fantasize about Dean letting her close enough to trace its path with her own gentle fingertips. Over soft worn cotton or warm hard flesh, she hadn't been fussy; but her hands had ached with the effort of keeping them to herself.

"Momma, do you still have his number?" she asked innocently, her voice, loyal in its normality, gave nothing of her thoughts away.

Helena blinked, and Mary-Joe knew that her mother’s mind had been elsewhere too. The slow flutter of long lashes over clear blue eyes worked like a key in a door, locked her memories back in the past. 

"Y-yes,” Helena’s voice was dry and cracked with emotion held tight in check as she pivoted to reach into the cupboard above the grey and white formica counter.

When she closed the pale blue door with its silver knob, Helena was holding an old-fashioned hat box to her breast, kept close and safe by sun-browned, long-fingered hands, their tips white with the pressure. "It's in here, _somewhere_."

She couldn't believe her mother still had it; the hand scrawled row of numbers that if entered would bring a very specific kind of help. It'd been many years, too many for Mary-Joe to remember exactly; and she'd been too young for Dean to truly notice her in the way she'd desperately wanted him to. The torn corner from a lined something, a legal pad or perhaps a journal, had felt so heavy when Mary-Joe had held its protective weight in her palm. 

Dean's fingers, warm and callused had brushed hers for the second it took to make sure she grasped and held it tight from the playful breeze. His touch had been magical, had sent shivers of scorching pleasure down her spine. He’d heard her embarrassing gasp, had quirked his full lips into a natural smirk, green eyes sparkling with a teasing mirth that’d warmed her cheeks. Mary-Joe felt heat paint her skin at the memory. 

She'd fallen asleep that night, her face smooshed into the brushed softness of her flower print sheets, fingers curled tightly around that tiny slip of hope - only to find no trace of it in the harsh morning sun. Mary-Joe had hunted high and low, turned her bed to mussed confusion as silent tears slid down puffy cheeks. It had gone, just like he had, disappeared into time as though neither one had ever existed.

But she'd been wrong, it hadn't vanished. Her mother had kept it all this time, had taken it while she slept; squirrelled it away like a nut over winter, until needed again. Helena had kept it with all those seemingly insignificant mementos of her life; things that no one else would understand the meaning of. Mary-Joe didn't know whether she felt betrayed at the theft or relieved that it hadn't been lost into time. 

She was older now, old enough, and soon, perhaps even today, Dean would come back for her. 

‘Well for his necklace, but it was kinda the same thing.’

Mary-Joe watched as her mother pulled the vital scrap from among the jumble of pressed flowers, once-colourful envelopes and old photographs, and reached for the wall-mounted phone. She imagined she could hear the growl of Baby's engine as she carried Dean across the miles between them. 

She saw how it would be, how he'd unfold himself from the car, long legs clad in ragged blue denim, grey-cottoned chest naked without what she had for him. He would duck his head so she could place his talisman around his neck and then, his eyes - oh his eyes - so full with the green of summer, would see her at last.


End file.
